Final Project

SEX- As Seen Through the Eyes of the Teen

Summary of Findings:
When looking at past issues of preteen-teen magazines including Teen Vogue, Cosmo Girl, and Seventeen, it can be concluded that the advertisements are swarming with inappropriate images. Ideas of nudity, sexual undertones, and a sexual portrayal of woman’s bodies are constantly reoccurring page after page. It is important to keep in mind that the average age demographic for these publications is 12-17 years old and 8 out of every 10 preteens and teenagers read magazines. (Magazine Publishers of America)

Summary of the Previous Studies:
“How Men’s Magazines Sexualized their Covers to Compete with Maxim,” by Jacueline Lambiase and Tom Reichert was used as a style basis for “Sex-As Seen Through the Eyes of the Teen.” This previous study looked at covers of men’s magazines including Details, Esquire, GQ, and Rolling Stone from January 1995-2000. These covered were looked at and compared to covers of Maxim over time. The variables used to determine the degree of sexuality seen in the covers was used as a guide to follow through with the content analysis used to determine the degree of sexuality seen in the advertisements looked at in the various teen magazines. Variables for the previous study included Pose, body view, dress, eye contact, facial expression, and posture. As a result, the study showed that women, more so than men, are sexually portrayed on the covers of the men’s magazines. (Reichert and Lambiase 73-83)

Literature Foundation:
The literature of the previous study was based on an older study conducted in 2001 by Brinkley and Fowler called “The Politics of Aesthetics: A comparison of Appearance- Driven Messages on Men’s and Women’s Magazine Covers.” This study reviewed covers of American women’s and men’s magazines from the 1990s for sexual dress and language. The study concluded that women are more commonly on covers than men, women are more sexually dressed then men, and the text messages on the covers of women’s magazines focused more on women’s self improvement then male magazines. (Reichert and Lambiase 72)
Corpus and Method:
Advertisements in magazines including Teen Vogue, Seventeen and Cosmo Girl were analyzed to complete the study. Variables including dress, posture and facial expression, and body view. Dress was measured for any degree of suggestive clothing, partially clad or full nudity. Posture and facial expression measured how inviting the model was or if they were in a position associated with a sexual behavior. (This was not limited to photos with two models. Single model or multi-model photos were included.) Finally, the body view variable included advertisements that focused on only particular body parts were being shown- mainly the sexual body parts or one’s bottom. Any advertisement that withheld these variables was tallied. It is important to keep in mind that although many advertisements were seen several times during research they were only counted once in the study. A total of nine magazines were used in the study- three of each magazine listed earlier.

Findings:
Out of all three magazines, the sexual focus model was a male three times in the advertisements. The rest of the ads contained one, two, or three females engaged in or dressed to exhibit sexual undertones. The three Teen Vogue magazines contained the most sexual undertones. Naked or partially clad women were seen in 22 of the magazine’s advertisements. A female model’s bottom or chest was the main focus of 10 of the advertisements. Models exhibiting a sexual or inviting posture or facial expression were seen in 15 of the magazine’s advertisements. Cosmo Girl and Seventeen magazines contained fewer sexual advertisements. Together, only 29 advisements had sexually dressed models, 9 showed the partial body images of a female’s bottom, and 22 advertisements included a sexual posture or inviting facial expression. Since several advertisements throughout the magazines were repeated, a total of 448 advertisements were considered over all. Of these 448 advertisements, 107 contained sexual images that are being seen by preteen and teen readership. Therefore, 341 advertisements over 9 magazines were pretty much clean.


Conclusion:
It is important to keep in mind that the overall age of readership for these magazines is between 12 and 17.(Magazine Publishers of America) It’s hard to imagine a 12 year old boy or girl taking in some of the sexually bases images that are seen in these publications. Samples of some of the intense ones are to follow this write up. It can be concluded that although the number of sexual advertisements is not outstanding, a little goes a long way. Despite the number of actual advertisements, preteens and teenagers are being exposed to the promiscuous sexual acts at young ages. The repercussions of these advertisements seem obvious. As more magazines for young people are looked out more and more sexually induced advertisements will inevitably be found. Young teens will continue to see the explicit images as long as they continue readership of magazines made for their age demographic.

Reference Page
"Market Profiles: Teen Market." 2004. Magazine Publishers of America. 1 Dec 2007 .
Reichert, Tom, and Jaqueline Lambiase. Sex in Consumer Culture. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates , 2006.

Final Project Research

I spent a lot of the weekend flipping through my magazines and compiling the research I need for my study. I am doing my study on the sexual undertones and portrayals (as well as nudity) that is found in teen magazines. I was also looking at some demographics information off the MPA website. I found out there there are several young people (ages 9-12) that read the teen magazines that I am getting my research from. I work at a drop off daycare, and I cant even begin to imagine children that young seeing the sexy images in these publications. Some of the adverting images that I found are way to provocative.

While reading through the magazine I also realized that there are TONS of advertisements for very high end products. There's no way that some of the readers can afford things like coach purses and Vera Wang perfume. I almost considered changing my topic to study how many ads like that are present in the magazines.

Dads in the Media

I read the article about Dads in the media portrayals, and I wanted to share my thoughts. Sure any stereotype is unfair but with all the female and mother portrayals over time it is only right that there is dad ones too. I feel that TV shows, ads, and movies make it a point to use this father portrayal for humor. They make dads out to be lazy, beer drinking, poker playing, irresponsible men. That's not my dad at all. Sure he drinks beer and watches football, but he is fun loving, nurturing, and hard working as well. The classic Al Bundy and Homer Simpson dad exists in society I'm sure, but it cant be the majority. I feel it is over used simply for comic relief.

Final Project

For my final Project, I will collecting data from teen/preteen magazines and studying the provocative and sexual content or undertones place in the magazines. The age Demographic for preteen/teen magazines is 8-17 according to the MPA website. I will be looking for Sexual Dress, which will be defined as clothing enunciating a sexual body part or worse. I will also be looking for under tones in the writing that will suggest sex or sexual like acts. Finally I will be looking to scenarios that encourage sex. I have already started my research and finding these things has been easy- which is unfortunate for the young readers. I have always wanted to write for a teen magazine, so that is part of the reason that I chose this topic.

Sex Sells... Movie

After reading this weeks chapter, one fact still stands out at me. The book did a study on genres of movies and the amount of sex scenes in them. In the end discussion is found that there are at least one sex scene per minuet in most movie trailers. That's so many! That statistic really stood out to me. I really enjoy watching cheesy girl dramas that have predictable endings! It's silly, but they restore faith in true love. Those movies are filled with sexual ties, but I feel that they are more likely to portray the male character as a sexual and good looking being then the women. Due to the fact that ladies are more likely to watch the films then men, that makes sense. Since it works to use sex to sell movies, the industry might as well make the most of it. I love movies, and I really love the idea of going to the movies and watching films on the big screen- despite how much sexual relations and clues they are filled with.

Halloween and the Media

Since tomorrow is Halloween, I work with children, and it's my favorite holiday ever- I wanted to dedicate a post to my observations while costume shopping. Dressing up as a ghost, a mummy, or a witch are the classic Halloween costumes. The occasional pumpkin or cowgirl is thrown in there too. I was in shock to find so many costumes based on pop cultural advertising.

The search began when one my of girl friends had the ridiculous idea to dress up as the Fanta girls. That has advertisement written all over it. "if the Fanta girls are hot, we can be hot to." It was a little silly. The costume that truly took the spot for me when a baby at the day care that I work at dressed up as one of the little babies in a Coppertone sun tan lotion commercial. Sure it was cute- but again a little ridiculous. Who knew advertising would effect Halloween costume choice.

Another observation I made this Halloween is the truth behind Lindsay Lohans comment in Mean Girls that Halloween costumes for girls are anything made slutty. I for one dressed up as Dora the Explorer. My friends were the classic "sexy nurse", "sexy school girl", and "sexy referee." I almost fell into the trap of degrading women's self image on Halloween. I, or a day, considered dressing up as a "slutty Dora." Lucky for me I realized fast that I was being ridiculous.

Sex is Everywhere

Since our class Friday with the lecture on sexual advertising, everywhere I turn I see it more and more. I went home and showed my roommate the AXE commercial on line, and she just got a kick out of it. I had never sat down and actually thought of how empowered the idea of sex is.

I've always known that it is part of Maslows Hierarchy of needs and that 'sex sells' but more then that- sex is everywhere. In the past week I have seen advertisement after advertisement that shows sexual parts or ideas and most of them have NOTHING to do with sex. I saw a provocative shave gel commercial 0n TV last night. It was ridicules.

I do however find it very interesting that sex is all over the place. I bought a new perfume at Sephora this week and one bottle I saw was in the shape of a women. I couldn't imagine why a straight women would want to pick up a glass female body each day and spray herself with it!

Ohio School Shooting- Stereotypes

I have been keeping up with several articles from the associate press about the school shooting in Cleveland Ohio. As any school shooting I find the events to be devastating and scary. For the purpose of this blog, I wanted to point out my opinion on the stereotypes I have been continuing to find in the articles. Each time the shooter is described, his ensemble is described. The writers make it very known to the readers that he was earning a Marilyn Manson shirt with black nail polish on his fingers. The quote students that discussed his trench coat and black outfits. I feel that these factors stress the idea of stereotypes. This was seen in the events of Columbine and are now being repeated. These ideas are ridiculas. Also, I sent in one article to share with the class that made it a point to highlight the race demographic of the school and the students involved in the shooting. As if that makes a difference. I feel like those statistics were put in the article as a "post Jena 6" idea of racial violence in schools.

Pre-teens and Sexual Content

Being a child care provider, I have seen many kids movies and shows through babysitting and working at the drop off daycare that I work at. It always surprises me to see the subtle adult content in the thing the children watch. It always reminds me of an episode of sponge bob square pants where sponge bob is sad and begins drinking "juice." The more juice he drinks the sillier he acts and the stranger his vision gets. Clearly not an appropriate theme for kids.

It makes me wonder why producers and writer feel the need to add these quotes and action to children's programing. Sherek for example is filled with adult content. It's clever how well they hide it, but I have learned that most of the time- Children are smarter then we think. They know things that I don't think I knew about when I was there age.

The show that I have recently discovered is Degrassi. I catch it at night on the TV station "The Noggin." The show takes place in both middle school and high school and unlike One Tree Hill or the OC... the kids look VERY VERY young. In the few times I've watched it before bed, I've been the children fight, have sex, have bisexual intercores, do drugs, and have babies. While many of the TV dramas are about these topics in high school, the actors tend to be in their mid 20s playing teenagers. Not in Degrassi. The actors are young. It surprises me every time.

I love children, and I spend a lot of time with them. There are wholesome children's shows out there that do meet up to the expectation that adults have for children's programming.

Race v Ethnicity

In class on Friday, we got into a talk about race and how it is used to describe people. For example, one student mentioned that he refered to a black man and the black man at the table as apposed to the color of his shirt or hair. This talk got me thinking about the differences between race and ethnicity. It was to my understanding that race refered to the color of your skin and ethnicity was more of your culture and background. I think the world would be a more interesting place if people were more likely to describe people by there background or ethnicity.

I'd much rather be the Jewish girl from New York then the white girl with brown hair.

I'm going to try hard to refer to peole by qualities that are more interesting and less controversial then their skin color. Hopefully this will rub off.

Assignment One.

How do you get news? How often? What do you read and view both online and offline? About how many hours a day or a week do you intentionally seek out news coverage? And one last question: when you think about news media and their coverage of race or gender or sexualities or disabilities, what are your own assumptions?

I've never had a blog before, so this is different for me.
I get my news through various sources. Mostly, I read the news online throughout the Day through yahoo, Google, or DallasNews. On the weekends I enjoy reading the paper and flipping through pages. I rarely have time for the during the school week. This summer I got a Nintendo Wii, and it lets you check the News on it. I've become a bit obsessed with that. I mostly cover my news in the mornings. I must average a good hour to an hour and a half searching the news. I also enjoy the usual girly magazines, so I spend time on entertainment news as well. I have so many countless assumptions of race, gender, sex, and disabilities in the media. It's endless. The way poverty, the middle east, women, men, children, the elderly, and so much more is seen in the media negatively is a huge part of today's world and perceptions. It's on going. I've very interested to delve deeper in class.